Happy New Year from NYC!

Well ...sort of... We were there December 23 but I'm guessing other than the addition of a million people or so - Times Square looks pretty much the same today as it did then. You can see the ball at the top of the Toshiba sign and below is me, in the black coat wishing ya'll a very safe and Happy New Year!

10 random shots of 2009

I thought today I'd share 10 random shots of 2010 that I thought I would share with you all at some point in the year but then stuff happened so...... here it goes now. In no particular order since I can not get how to format these in blogger ....damn you blogger!! The sunset shot is off our back patio. Then we have a shot of some art work in Valparsio - that was such a cool visit and I would go back in a heartbeat. Then we have some shrunken heads in a museum in Valparsio.

Next is Hubby in this very cool cafe in Buenos Aries - the colors were so bright! Next is open pit grilling at a

restaurant we ate at in Ushuaia,Argentina. It was all you can eat and boy was it good. I think we were the first ones for dinner since we ate at 7:00pm

instead of the usual 10 or 11:00pm

Back in the states is a pic of our wood shed - we split about 3-4 cords of wood preparing for the winter and have almost burned through half of it. We enjoyed our trip to NYC for hubby's b-day and this is some of the great architecture (old buildings) in Greenwich Village.

A gorgeous quilt from the Lowell Quilt Show - another fun trip we took and a shot of a beautiful fall day in Vermont. Finally I am posing with Nelson and some purple beaded mitts I made for Nico's Mom for Thanksgiving/Christmas. They turned out better than the picture shows and are so 80's fabulous! We both love them & I am knitting a black pair for me!

You could never tell by this page formatting that I was the editor of our yearbook in high school - sorry Mrs. Muellar for all the trapped white space!

Christmas Week Happenings

Whew - last week was a little crazy but good crazy for us. A brief re-cap with photos.
I finished the quilt for my mother-in-law's Christmas present. It is not really my style but it is hers & since it was her gift - I was very pleased with how it came out. It's a scrap quilt but all the colors seemed to jive together - here is a close up.


We got all the gifts mailed and then went to NYC on Wednesday to take in the holiday festivities. On the train, we decided we'd go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - we have never been because we always get side tracked - usually by a good pub crawl. So we were set on the Met thing, but we'd go after we went to Union Square Farmer's Market. Can I tell you - the Farmer's Market was so nifty. It was only in the 20's but since it was sunny it was a beautiful day and all the vendors had their fresh products, veg, meat , cheese the usual farmer's market stuff sitting out under big tents. We wanted to buy some great stuff but didn't want to lug it all to the Met so we just bought some hot cider and walked around looking. We needed to get an up to date guide book of NYC and there was a Barnes & Noble across the street - we thought we'd pop in, buy a book and go to the Met. We popped in and our Met plans were totally derailed by this guidebook. We decided not to fight fate and went into the Heartland Brewery across another street and plot our pub crawl. When we looked through the book, we were surprised to find we had only been to one of the pubs mentioned. And trust me, we have been on some serious pub crawls in the city starting with our first visit 2 days after we moved to CT. We concentrated on mostly dive bars around the city so we could go check out different neighborhoods. We did make it to Central Park - farther North than we have usually gone so that was new. In the interest of time (I need to get to work) I'll be brief and say we enjoyed the tour and spaced out the stops enough so we remember every place we went to. We actually had a sit down dinner that was most amazing (usually we just snack on stuff like a slice of pizza, hot dog, etc.) at Turkish Cuisine. As usual, after a trip to the city we were beat up and happy to get on the train back home.

Making Cookies, finishing quilts and FRED!

It has been a little bit busy here in my neck of the woods. All good! Sunday I had the joyful experience of making Christmas cookies with an almost 5 year old - seriously - we had a great time. Of course martinis and wine were involved for Training Buddy & I - all Princess (the almost 5 year old) needed was the frosting. We had great fun, created a great mess and really isn't that one of the best parts of Christmas?

I'm almost done with the quilt I have been making for my mother-in-law - it will be finished tonight and in the mail tomorrow. I think she's gonna love it.

And speaking of love- The Training Buddys' and Hubby & I went to see my all time favorite performer Fred Eaglesmith at a show this week in Willimantic. he was awesome as ever but out of about 200 people who were there- Training Buddy & i were the only ones up dancing. Sometimes these Yankees can be so restrained here in Connect the Dots. But hell, we had fun and even got to talk to Fred a little bit after the show. Go check out his web site - if he is going to be playing somewhere close to you - GO! he is an amazing song writer and performer.

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Making my list and checking it twice

Good morning! My fun task today is wrapping gifts to mail out to family & friends. Historically, Hubby & I wait till the last possible day and then get the pleasure of single handily supporting the USPS for the day by paying a huge amount of money to insure our gifts get there on time. In the spirit of getting my sh*t together this year, I'm going to get everything that has to go west of the Mississippi wrapped, packaged and mailed out today. And I'm only drinking herbal tea now - since this isn't my most favorite job we'll see if the tea holds me or I need to bump up to a bloody mary...

Our trip to Bethlehem...

Last weekend we make the pilgrimage to Bethlehem CT so I could get our Christmas cards all mailed out. We try to get over every year. It is a little hokey but we manage to have fun and this year we discovered the roasted chestnuts booth sponsored by the Lions Club - I have never had chestnuts really roasted over an open fire - they were awesome! I got about 95% of the cards mailed (some got left behind at home by accident), hand stamped by Hubby with the "this card was mailed from Bethlehem" stamp. We also went to the Abbey Of Regina Laudis and bought a Women in Chant CD (amazing & very spiritual even though it's in Latin - you can feel the love, really and I'm more of a heathen and even I can feel it), cheddar cheese the nuns make (really - it's world famous) and yarn spun from wool from sheep on the farm (because I don't have enough yarn sitting around). It is a funky place to go but I like it. We ate lunch at one of our favorite places to go The GW Tavern in Washington Depot. Very New Englandy and right in the middle of prep school central so we saw several current prep school kids and parents with their future prep school kids. It was snowing the whole day and those of you who know us know what that means - WE GOT TO DRINK PORT!!! We came home, drank some port and tortured the cats - see the photos. The llamas were in the holiday spirit at the Christmas festival - our cats?? Not so much...

Here is Get Me the Hell Out of Here Grinch Casey

And Ebeneezer Scrooge Nelson

How to pack on 6 pounds in 5 days - it's super easy!!

For those of you wanting to bulk up this holiday season, (and seriously who doesn't?!) I have found the perfect diet. The cooking is a little labor intensive but so worth the results you'll get. Since I seem to be a little lazy with the blog posts and two loyal readers called me out on it this weekend - I'll share this most awesome diet with you tonight.

DAY ONE

Breakfast - whatever

Lunch - a sandwich with chips

Dinner - Lobster bisque, grill cheese sandwich (snobby, creamy cheese with lots of butter), individual chocolate souffle

To drink - A couple French 75's; wine with dinner and martinis apr`e dinner

DAY TWO

Breakfast - A couple of pieces of Harvey Wallbanger bundt cake

To drink - Harvey Wallbangers of course!

Lunch - some white wine

Dinner - the most fabulous Thanksgiving dinner ever (eaten at 8 pm for better fat absorption)

Brined turkey (22 lb'er to guarantee enough left overs for 6 months)- don't forget that nummy skin because look at the picture of our bird - it looks as amazing as it tasted, home made corn bread/sausage/cranberry stuffing, mashed potatoes, home made giblet gravy, peas, sauted brussel sprouts with hazelnut butter, cheesy cauliflower casserole, bourbon apple sweet potato casserole, pumpkin cheesecake and cranberry torte for dessert.

To drink - white wine and sherry

DAY THREE

Breakfast - Harvey Wallbanger bundt cake

Lunch - skip that and don't hydrate

Dinner - left over Thanksgiving dinner

To drink - martinis & wine

DAY FOUR

Breakfast - nothing you are going to a party later so save your calories

Lunch - Turkey sandwiches on hard rolls w/ chips

Dinner - snack on the snacks at Mr. Neighbor's 40th birthday party. Stay away form the veggie platter concentrating only on the Tyson chicken pieces, assorted sips and chips, taquitos and anything else remotely fatty

To drink - martinis pre- party, wine at the party

DAY FIVE

Breakfast - sleep through it, drag out of bed around 10:30

Lunch - no time, the Training Buddy's are coming over for football

Early dinner - turkey ala king over white rice with toasted cashews and fried Chinese noodles, leftover cranberry torte

To drink - chocolate martini, champagne, copious amounts of white wine as the Dolphins lost

The big bonus of this diet is that there is no exercise involved at all - it is strongly discouraged if you want to experience the full bulk up benefits.

Now that I am filling out my pants again, I have stopped the drinking alcohol for awhile, sticking with water & iced tea and dragging out to walk with Mrs. Neighbor at 5:30 AM. The healthy stuff is going to kill me......